Land above famed Hollywood sign up for sale

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A parcel of mountaintop land behind the famed Hollywood sign has been put up for sale, provoking outrage from Los Angeles city officials and residents worried that building there would spoil one of the most famous postcard views in the world.

A Chicago investment group said on Wednesday it was asking $22 million for a 138-acre (55-hectare) tract of land just west of the white Hollywood sign on Cahuenga Peak because the Los Angeles city council had failed to come up with cash to preserve its rugged wilderness state.

Keith Dickson, a representative of the group, told a news conference the investors regarded the parcel of land, with its views across Los Angeles and out to the Pacific Ocean, as "a Van Gogh in a garage sale".

Fox River Financial Resources bought the mountaintop in 2002 from the estate of reclusive entrepreneur Howard Hughes, who had planned to build a love nest there for actress Ginger Rogers in the 1940s. The plan never came to fruition.

Dickson said the remote ridge property had been divided into lots for five luxury homes. Utility lines, water service and roads would also have to be built.

City councilman Tom LaBonge said he was stunned by the asking price and by the possibility of buildings on the site.

"That mountain should not be cluttered. It's good for the psyche of Los Angeles," LaBonge told the Los Angeles Times.

"The city should acquire this land. Everyone was shocked to find out it was privately owned."

The Hollywood sign spells out the name of the area in 45-ft (13.7-meter) high white letters. It originally read Hollywoodland and was created as an advertisement for a housing development in 1923. The last few letters deteriorated in the late 1940s and the part that remained was restored in 1978.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Dan Whitcomb and Jackie Frank)